MacArthur Foundation to help 2 local groups expand

Nearly $3 million in grants headed to Community Development Corp., Business and Professional People for the Public Interest

February 16, 2012|By Mary Ellen Podmolik, Chicago Tribune reporter

Jack Markowski is president of Community Investment Corp., which helps redevelop vacant buildings in struggling Chicago neighborhoods. The organization is receiving a $2 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)

One Chicago group that's determined to repopulate the city's vacant buildings and another that largely works behind the scenes to effect social change have been tapped by the MacArthur Foundation to receive almost $3 million in funding.

Community Investment Corp. and Business and Professional People for the Public Interest are among 15 organizations in six countries, and the only Illinois groups, to be named recipients of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.

The grants, which ranged from $350,000 to $2.5 million, are not intended to reward past accomplishments but to help organizations continue their success, said Robert Gallucci, MacArthur's president. "This is, fundamentally at its core, institution-building," he said. "They can be helped by an infusion of funds that will help them become more stable and durable but they've already demonstrated what they're capable of doing."

The recipients are all groups previously funded by MacArthur. The difference is the grants do not have to be repaid and their use is not directed to a specific project. Being a recipient of a MacArthur grant also should increase their public visibility and potential to attract additional investment.

Community Investment Corp., which is receiving a $2 million grant, already is visible in the struggling Chicago neighborhoods where it works. Since 2003, it has assisted with the redevelopment of 3,000 affordable rental units in 186 Chicago buildings.

The organization will use the funds to expand its troubled buildings initiative, a program in which it purchases or becomes a receiver for vacant buildings and then sells them to new owners while at the same time helping finance the buildings' renovation. Jack Markowski, the group's president, said the work will be concentrated in the nine neighborhoods targeted by the city for foreclosure prevention: Humboldt Park, Chatham, Chicago Lawn, West Woodlawn, Auburn Gresham, West Pullman, Belmont Cragin, Englewood and Grand Boulevard.

"It's going to allow us to be more aggressive in our acquisition of properties," Markowski said. "We can go out and take a chance on a property that we might not have."

MacArthur has been a "stalwart" funder of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest for many years, according to Executive Director E. Hoy McConnell II, who says the group is receiving $750,000 in recognition of its impact on the issues surrounding urban poverty in the Chicago area.

"We try to work closely with those people who are influencing policy and try to really persuade them of a different point of view than they might have going in," he said.

The group plans to use the funds to create an endowed fellowship to attract young lawyers and policy specialists as well as to establish a two-year visiting fellowship in urban poverty strategies.